Nn Man Sentenced In Sealift Bribery Case

Federal Government Will Receive Cash Repayment

March 11, 1999|By DENNIS O'BRIEN Daily Press

NORFOLK — A Newport News man has been sentenced to three years of probation and six months of electronically monitored home detention for taking bribes to rig bids on work for Military Sealift Command ships.

Robert J. Collins Jr., of Silverwood Drive, pleaded guilty in December to taking $8,614.95 worth of goods as payoffs. He now must pay that amount to the federal government in cash.

Collins was snared during a four-year sting by the FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. Their investigation involved creating a bogus company to seek contracts for Sealift ships.

The MSC oversees a U.S.-flagged fleet of merchant ships that exists to transport war materiel in times of national crisis. The command hires companies to maintain and operate the ships. Those companies in turn often parcel out the work to subcontractors.

Collins, 56, worked in the Norfolk office of New Jersey-based Bay Ship Management Inc., which had a five-year, $275 million contract with the command to keep eight fast Sealift ships afloat and at the ready.

Collins' job was to award contracts to subcontractors for the operation and maintenance of the USNS Altair.

Between 1995 and March 1998, Collins took from ship repair contractors a number of items, including a teak table, a canvas boat cover and a TV, according to court records.

In return, Collins supplied the companies that bribed him with their competitors' information, which allowed them to submit the lowest bids for work on the Altair.

He also awarded a contract without soliciting competing bids, as federal law requires. To make it look like he had solicited competing bids, Collins submitted bogus bids from real companies -Eor so he thought.

One of the companies he claimed submitted a bid was actually a bogus company, created by investigators to nab corrupt individuals involved in Sealift maintenance contracting.

Dennis O'Brien can be reached at 247-4791 or by e-mail at dobrien@dailypress.com